Tea party warns House GOP on Boehner

House Speaker John Boehner

The drive to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House gained steam ahead of Tuesday's critical vote as more House members added their names to the list of opposition.

At least 15 House members are now considered publicly against retaining the embattled House Speaker from Ohio with more expected to join the opposition after a morning caucus that was scheduled to start at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday.

Rep. Curtis Clawson, R-Fla., and Randy Webber, R-Texas, came out opposed to Boehner last night.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, mentioned on the Sean Hannity Show last night that Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., will also come out publicly against Boehner.

"Picking up momentum and ever-intensifying (the) effort to organize opposition for the floor vote tonight," King told WND Tuesday morning.

The pivotal vote has been set for 12:40 p.m. today.

House members have come under tremendous pressure from tea party and anti-illegal immigration groups to dump Boehner, who is seen as too weak to confront a White House that increasingly governs by executive action on controversial issues such as immigration and health care.

Late Monday TheTeaParty.net leader Niger Innis sent an "urgent call to action" to his email list titled "Replace John Boehner Now" in which he advised his followers that the time to call their congressmen is now.

"Rep. John Boehner was elected Speaker after the Tea Party tsunami of 2010, having been minority leader previously.

"During Boehner's tenure, both the expansion of the federal government and spending has run rampant with little resistance from the Republican-controlled House. It's time for Boehner to step aside or be replaced with someone who will stand up to runaway cronyism and a President bent on destroying a great nation.

"Our supporters have been jamming the Congressional phone and email systems demanding that the ineffectual leadership of Boehner and his K Street controlled counterparts are replaced with someone who values the oath of office every member of Congress must swear to honor the Constitution and be a representative of the people, not the Washington lobby.

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"The message we the voters sent in the last election is simple. We are demanding that politics as usual is replaced with a Congress that will stop the illegal actions of the current President, reduce government spending and return the Federal government to its Constitutional boundaries. Unfortunately, John Boehner does not seem to have what it takes to lead and we are asking you to support our effort to remove him from the Speaker's position."

Another group, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, announced Monday it will pull its support from any member of Congress who supports Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as speaker of the House.

Earlier, Tea Party Nation posted a blog announcing its opposition to Boehner and touting Rep. Gohmert, R-Texas, for the job.

Tea Party Nation is one of the nation's largest tea party groups.

"THE FINAL SPRINT IS UP TO US, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE," the group posted in one blog on its website. "Our mission of electing a new speaker to the House of Representatives and firing Speaker Boehner takes exciting turns.

"Last week we found a healthy number of representatives working to elect a new speaker that snowballed into an increasing wave of support to achieve that goal.

"Now this weekend we have 2 challengers to Boehner stepping boldly forward for the speakership position: Louie Gohmert (TX) and Ted Yoho (FL)."

The new Congress will be seated Tuesday and one of the first orders of business will be to choose the Speaker of the House, a powerful position which leads the House legislative agenda and is third in the line of succession to the presidency.

A "Dump Boehner" letter-writing campaign started by WND founder Joseph Farah has garnered 560,000 letters to Congress over a holiday period in which few people pay attention to the machinations of Washington.

JOIN THE DON'T BE YELLOW DUMP BOEHNER CAMPAIGN

ALIPAC is cautioning lawmakers that a vote for Boehner Tuesday for speaker "will be considered a vote for amnesty for illegal immigrants and as such will result in loss of endorsement from the national organization that currently supports more than 70 members of Congress."

ALIPAC President William Gheen said a poll by EMC Research finding that 60 percent of Republicans want someone other than Boehner in the speakership should lend powerful traction to the palace coup brewing on Capitol Hill.

"Sixty percent is a landslide in any election, by any standard," Gheen said. "There is landslide support for Republicans to elect someone other than John Boehner as speaker."

To be successful in replacing Boehner, the uprising needs 29 Republicans to support some other candidate. The anti-Boehner coup is led by Gohmert, who has put his name in the ring of challengers for the speakership along with Yoho. Others who have publicly stated they will not be voting for Boehner include Reps. David Brat, R-Va., Steve King, R-Iowa, Walter Jones, R-N.C., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., Gary Palmer, R-Ala., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Marlin Stutzman, Ind.

At least two other freshmen members, Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., and Rep. John Ratliffe, R-Texas, said prior to the November 2014 election that they would not vote for Boehner as speaker.

Reps. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., and Justin Amash, R-Mich., have voted in the past against Boehner for speaker but have not announced yet how they will vote this time.

Others thought to be leaning against Boehner but who have not publicly announced their positions include Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla.

Gheen said he believes the 60 percent figure in the EMC poll is only going to climb as more Republicans emerge from their holiday slumber and realize they have been "sold out" by Boehner on the $1.1 trillion budget that fully funds Obamacare while also funding Obama's executive amnesty through Feb. 27, providing billions of dollars in federal subsidies and hand-outs for illegal aliens.

He said that if Boehner is elected speaker by his Republican colleagues, the writing is on the wall for the future of the Republican Party. It has no future.

"This whole thing is about reconnecting people with their government and right now that connection is being broken by Boehner and Obama who are both putting out a steady streams of lies and deception that are killing America and if the Republicans in Congress are not genuine enough to do what needs to be done with John Boehner then a lot of us are going to be leaving the Republican party," Gheen said. "A lot of people. And there will be something new, hopefully that is more sincere in its desire to represent the American people. Right now Congress is being run in a dictatorial and oligarchical fashion that is unbefitting of America, or any constitutional republic."

Gheen said Monday's announcement "is a very big deal for us" because ALIPAC does not typically tell its endorsed candidates that they will lose the group's support over one vote, "but we feel we have to deliver the message that a vote for John Boehner is a vote for Obama."

"Obama wants John Boehner to win the vote for speaker tomorrow," he said. "John Boehner is the speaker who delivered the big ole sack of money, the $1.1 trillion CRomnibus, to Obama's desk," Gheen said.

Conservative organizations expect a dogfight that could come down to the wire Tuesday.

Locate your representative in Congress and contact them to give your input on whether Speaker Boehner should be retained or ousted.

The list of prominent conservative groups and individuals on record against Boehner continuing at the helm of the House now includes the following:

Alan Keyes
Ed Dean
Jack Furnari, BizpacReview
Mr. Conservative
Kevin Jackson
Dana Loesch
Michelle Malkin
Joshua Riddle, Young Conservatives
Evan Sayet
Kurt Schlicter
Tom Tancredo
Jamie Radtke
Campaign to Free America
Nashville Tea Party
Chattanooga Tea Party
Tea Party WDC
Joe For America
Tony Olivia- Bulletsfirst.net
Dustin Stockton
Western PAC
Joe the Plumber
Sean Hannity
ALIPAC
Tea Party Nation
Freedom Works
Laura Ingraham
Mark Levin
TheTeaParty.net
NC Tea Party Coalition
U.S. Patriots Union
Veteran Defenders of America

"If Rep. John Boehner remains the new House Speaker, old establishment Republican policies of going along to get along will continue. If Sen. Mitch McConnell remains the Senate Majority Leader, it will be business as usual," said another email blast issued Monday night by the U.S. Patriots Union. "The message sent by the American people in the 2014 election is that we will no longer tolerate business as usual in Washington D.C. and we will hold politicians accountable for ignoring that message!"

Gheen also cites recent revelations from Boehner himself that he finds troubling.

"While drinking with the notorious liberal Joy Behar he told her he was Obama's best friend," Gheen said. "There's a famous Latin saying, 'In vino de veritas' or 'In wine there is truth.' John Boehner has to get drunk to tell the truth, and I believe he was telling the truth when he told Joy back in September he was Obama's best friend."

Gheen said Boehner has exposed himself as the "pretend opposition," not the real opposition, and he is doing the bidding of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not the rank and file Republicans who turned out in the November election to sweep out Democrats.

"He's in power due to his willingness to deceive conservatives. And if members of Congress are not loyal enough to the Constitution to replace him then they need to get kicked out of office in the next election, they will be targeted for a Dave Brat vs. Eric Cantor style primary in 2016 and an independent candidate to be placed on the ballot in case our GOP primary fails."

Unlike Boehner, Gheen said Cantor at least told the truth about his support for amnesty.

If status-quo Republicans are successful Tuesday in re-electing Boehner as speaker, Gheen said ALIPAC will start looking for replacement candidates on Wednesday.